Gregor’s Bed: Nebraska

by Wanda Waterman
The Voice Magazine, Volume 22 Issue 33 2014-08-22

Film: Nebraska

Director: Alexander Payne

Writer: Bob Nelson

DAVID: Hey, Dad, how about we go see Mount Rushmore?
WOODROW: We don’t have time to see that!
DAVID: It’s just 30 minutes off the interstate. And we’re right here.
WOODROW: It’s just a bunch of rocks!
– Dialogue from Nebraska

Woody wants to go to Nebraska to pick up his million dollars in winnings. His family knows the “sweepstakes” he’s supposedly won is just a scheme to get people to buy magazines, but Woody is going to Nebraska come Hell or high water.

His son David sells stereo equipment in a working class town in a recession economy (you do the math). He’s a handsome guy with an obese, plain, and surly ex-girlfriend he’s begging to come back to live with him. She won’t come back unless they marry, and she’s not even sure she wants to marry him.

David looks around him and realizes that driving his father to Nebraska makes about as much sense as anything else in his meaningless life, so he decides to call in sick and hit the road. (Read the rest here.)